Convera GlobalPay for Students alternative: migrate to Qualy

If you use Convera GlobalPay for Students (formerly Western Union Business Solutions), your students already pay in their home currency through a portal with a payment reference. Qualy works the same way for the student. What changes for you is that every payment is a record you create and track through an API, and you can pay agents and partners from it.

Convera doesn't publish a public developer API for its student payments, so this guide maps workflows rather than API calls.

Concept map

Convera GlobalPay for Students	Qualy	Notes
Payer (student with a student id)	Contact	Keep your student id in a custom field.
Payment instructions + unique reference	Payment intent + its link	The payment carries its own reference, so nothing is matched by hand.
Institution payer portal	Payment portal on your subdomain or custom domain	One-off links per student, or reusable links for set fees.
Paying in home currency with a held quote	`settlementCurrency`, or the student chooses on the portal	Local methods appear by currency.
Card, eWallet, local bank transfer	Methods on the portal	See Collecting payments.
Agent pays, or sends the student a link	The agent shares the payment link; payment splits pay the agent's commission	—
Tracking emails and texts	Notifications and dunning	Reminders before and after the due date.
Refund with its own reference	Refund	—
Reconciliation data into finance	Webhooks + queries	`paymentIntents.update`, `transactions.create`, `splitIntents.update`.

Issuing a payment

Where a student would start on Convera's portal and pick your institution, you create the payment and send them straight to it:

const res = await fetch('https://api.qualyhq.com/v1/payment-intents/create', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'ApiKey your-api-key-here',
    'X-TENANT-ID': 'your-tenant-id-here',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    intentType: 'ad-hoc',
    number: 'STU-88231-T1',
    contact: 'chen.wei@example.com',
    currency: 'AUD',
    dueAt: '2027-01-15T00:00:00.000Z',
    items: [{ name: 'Tuition fee — Term 1', category: 'Course', amount: 820000 }],
  }),
});

const { data: payment } = await res.json();
console.log(payment.links.short);

For fees anyone can pay without being invoiced first (application fees, deposits), use a reusable link instead.

Reconciliation

You don't import a file. Listen for:

paymentIntents.update — status moves to paid-partial or paid-full.
transactions.create — money arrived, with amount, currency and method.

Bank transfers to Qualy are matched by the payment's reference (QLY-PYMT-<number>), shown to the student on the portal.

Cutting over

Switch by intake or term. Payments already sent to Convera, and refunds on them, finish with Convera.
Import open balances as contacts and payment intents, and send the new links.
Update your payment pages and agent instructions to point to Qualy links, so no one pays the same fee twice.